The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-12-24
4 DIOTlh)g Adventure.

About three years ago two young men, Walter Robbins and John Ben- nett, operatives ill Lynn shoe fac tory, finding themselves unable to save up much money by their work, and despairing of getting ahead much at the east, turncd all their possessions into cash, went out to Wyoming Ter ritory and embarked in the business of sheep farming. They located on one of the tributary creeks of the North Platte river, at the foot of the mountains.
 Very early one morning, not long ago, they slaughtered fat sheep and hung it up to the limb of pine tree a few yards away from the door of their "shack," or slab-house. Then, while Robbins dressed the sheep, Ben nett proceeded to get breakfast, and fried a mess of the fresh sheep's liver.
 Breakfast being ready about the time that Robbins finished his task, his partner called him in, and they sat down at table inside to eat. While they were thus agreeably occupied they were suddenly disturbed by the cracking of the pine boughs, and heard a thud, as of some heavy body falling to the earth. They rose hastily from the table and stepped to the door, and were astonished by the sight of a large tawny- -colored animal making off with their mutton.
 It was mountain lion, which had come boldly up to the shack while they were eating, and leaping among the branches where the carcass hung, had broken them down and secured the entire sheep.
 After one nasty glance they both turned to snatch down their Win chesters, and Robbins, getting out a little ahead, fired several shots at the creature as it loped off up the narrow valley of the creek. But the active movements of the animal, notwith- standing the weight of mutton it was carrying, prevented him from getting a good aim, and he failed to touch the creature.
 The lion kept it's course up the canon for several hundred yards, and then disappeared in one of the deep, narrow gulches or draws that open out into the creek valley.
 "He's gone into that draw !" said Walter excitedly. "Now we'll get him, if he hasn't got den in there 1! You go round on top of the hill to the head of the draw, John, and I'll go into the draw, and if don't shoot him in there, you'll get good shot as he comes out"
 "All right" said Bennett, "but be sure to leave me time enough to make the head of the draw"
 Gun in hand, the two men started at run. Bennett started up over the bluffs, and Robbins hurried up over the bed of the gulch.
 Walter soon reached the entrance to the draw, which was merely a deep, rocky notch, thickly grown to buffalo berry bushes and stunted pines. Here he waited, until he thought Bennett must surely have made the head of the draw, though owing to sharp curve in the ravine, which prevented him from seeing, he was not able to deter mine the fact. Then he started hur- piedly up the narrow, bush grown waterway at the bottom, holding his rife in readiness for shot.
 He soon found himself entering a gloomy, pocket like ravine, with sides rough, steep and forbidding. He after wards admitted that he knew it to be a rash undertaking, but he was deter mined to have satisfaction for that mutton, and pushed on with more haste than prudence, scrambling over the boulders that lay in the bed of the waterway, and forcing a passage through thickets of brush that over hung it. All the time, too, he kept a sharp lookout for the panther, which he expected to startle out of it's hiding place by the noise of his approach.
 He did start the creature presently, and knew that he was on its trail; for upon several of the big rocks which lay at the bottom, he discovered traces of blood where the fresh carcass had been dragged over them.
 A moment later he came to a sharp curve in the gulch, formed by point of rocks jutting out into it. Here the water-bcd suddenly widened to plat of hard earth, overhung and darkened on one side by low, beetling ledge of red rocks, and shut in on the other by a brushy slope, so steep and ragged that man would have found 1t diff cult to climb.
 The sun was not yet very high, and the whole gulch was still in shadow 1; so that, although Walter had now brought himself face to face with the panther, he was first made aware of its presence by low snarling that came from the base of the projecting ledge.
 Even fhan a dark yrna fha r,laca